Amazon Prime taking on Netflix with monthly subscriptions

You can now order Amazon Prime as a monthly subscription with full access to its movie, music and TV show libraries, making it an even more direct competitor to Netflix. The subscription based streaming space has got its fair share of competitors already – HBO Now, Netflix, Hulu Plus – but none of them offer free two-day shipping in the world’s largest online marketplace.

Amazon Prime is still available as a $99/year service but the new monthly subscription plans offer the freedom of being able to turn the service on and off as necessary, so if you take off on holidays or decide you don’t like it you don’t need to pay for something you won’t be using. However, the yearly cost of a monthly subscription does work out at about one-third more than the flat annual fee.

Amazon Prime is now available for $10.99/month, which includes free two-day shipping from Amazon and unlimited streaming of music, movies and TV shows. Or you can just subscribe to what’s being called Prime Video for $8.99/month, which includes full access to Amazon’s TV shows and movies, but no music or free delivery.

Prime Video is perhaps the more direct competitor to Netflix, in service as well as price, but offering the full Amazon Prime service as a monthly subscription option as well gives Amazon an edge over its streaming-only competitors.

Although the full year cost of each monthly plan ($108 for Prime Video or $132 for Amazon Prime) is more than the straight $99 annual fee, Amazon is hoping the lack of a contract will entice many potential customers that aren’t willing to commit to an annual subscription. Yet. With a free month’s trial, what have you got to lose?